August 23 Post - Being Vegetarian or Vegan in a care home: it’s not always easy

Being vegetarian or vegan in care can be a tricky issue, as vegetarian meals are not always provided. But needing care shouldn’t mean that you need to change your habits and especially your beliefs. This is why at Ostrich we have invited Tina Fox, Director of Vegetarian for Life to tell us about her charity.

Vegetarian for Life: helping vegetarians in care

The charity Vegetarian for Life was set up in 2007 as a result of problems encountered by vegetarians in care homes. There was a famous case (in the vegetarian press) of a lifelong vegan campaigner for animal rights who entered care. All was well at first but when she developed dementia and had no relatives to “fight her corner” the care home staff felt it was perfectly acceptable to feed her meat as she was confused. This happens quite often, not only is this very disrespectful to a person’s strongly held beliefs but also if they have not eaten meat for around 80 years it is unlikely to be accepted well by their digestive system and could lead to health problems.

Vegetarian food in care: learning to do it right

In another example a vegetarian lady who left a sheltered scheme for an institution was given mashed potato with cauliflower cheese and rice pudding for her first meal. Not only was this pretty unappealing visually, all white and mushy, but also a dairy overload and this is the most common mistake made by care home catering staff – cheese, cheese and more cheese!

Vegetarian catering courses

Vegetarian for Life provides one day subsidised catering courses for the care homes on our UK List of vegetarian friendly establishments and we are always surprised at the level of ignorance relating to how to cook pulses, meat alternatives, etc. Many chefs have never even tried to cook dishes with lentils, chick peas or such and most have not tried quorn or vegemince which are very useful standbys and can be used in cottage pies, spaghetti dishes and so on with very little trouble. They are of course also cheaper than meat and lower in fat and can often be very acceptable to non-vegetarians concerned with their health. We know of one care home where the residents, mostly meat eaters, regularly choose the vegetarian options as they are more interesting and they have a completely vegetarian week once a year.

Creating appetising and nourishing meals

We all know that it can be difficult to get older people to eat anyway and that a lot of us “eat with our eyes”. So it is important the meals look appetising and are nourishing. I really don’t think I would last very long if all I was provided with was egg or cheese dishes at every meal especially as these are often just a baked potato or an omelette.

Getting your daily amount of proteins

Another common problem is the lack of protein in the diet of vegetarians and vegans in care – a pasta dish with just tomato sauce or vegetables in sauce has no protein component. This is quite frequent in restaurants but is less of a problem there as it is only one meal and can be compensated for by other meals at home. Someone in a care home receiving these kinds of meals frequently will be receiving insufficient protein. Nuts are an excellent source of protein and some fibre for vegetarian diets and can be ground up for those with swallowing difficulties but many care homes prefer to have a nut free environment due to allergies and thus remove this excellent source of protein, again increasing the dependency on high fat dairy ingredients.

Using substitutes instead of meat

Some care homes are concerned that vegetarian food will take more preparation and obviously they are time limited – however a number of dishes, pies, casseroles, stews, etc. can be easily adapted to just substitute pulses or meat alternatives for the meat – for example the ingredients for a cottage pie are mostly the same – just use a different base for a vegetarian resident, similarly the same sauce can be used for spaghetti Bolognese, just substitute vegemince for the real thing.

Vegetarians in care: you are not alone

We carried out a telephone survey a few years ago which showed that vegetarians were present in at least 25% of care homes – this figure is likely to increase due to the ageing of the “Hippy Generation” and due to the increasing numbers of older Asians entering care. Care homes need to be ready to cater properly for this group and this is something Vegetarian for Life can help with: we have a number of free publications, all available in print or as a download from our website, we also have a wide range of recipes on our website and those care homes that choose to join our free UK List also receive a training DVD and access to our subsidised catering courses. For further information visit www.vegetarianforlife.org.uk